Within weeks of taking power, Britain’s new Prime Minister Theresa May faced a decision about the country’s energy supply that is also tangled up with relations with China, France, Brussels and much else besides.

Is this a sign that May is significantly more cautious when it comes to Chinese investment in the U.K. than her predecessor? Is she concerned about possible security implications if Britain were to invite Beijing into its nuclear power supply? Is this an attempt to stand up to the French, whose state-controlled energy company EDF is a co-investor? Or is May’s review actually just a review, a sensible step taken by a clear-sighted new prime minister who has only just assumed power?

Here are seven things to consider:

China is right to be worried

Downing Street insists there is nothing for Chinese or French governments to be concerned about. Reviewing such a major project is nothing more than common sense, good governance, senior aides insist.

The decision the board of French energy giant EDF madeto give the Hinkley Point project the go-ahead after months of prevaricating came a week after May’s first visit to Paris to hold talks with President François Hollande.

Look a little closer and there is something going on. May wasn’t “bounced” into the pause by EDF’s sudden decision to go ahead, as some initial reports suggested. Civil servants working on the project were aware for months that a decision could be taken by EDF in July. This did not come out of the blue.

As a cabinet minister under David Cameron, May had also signed off on the project and was responsible, as home secretary, for ensuring the project did not leave the U.K. open to state-sponsored espionage from Beijing.

May is reviewing the project because she thinks it needs reviewing. It may well be given the go-ahead but the decision now rests with the prime minister.

Goodbye, George

What is the difference between deepening ties with a global partner and kowtowing to an authoritarian state? The answer probably depends on how large your debts are.

To George Osborne, the former chancellor of the exchequer whose primary task was dragging the economy out of the doldrums, the rewards for becoming China’s best friend in the West were so great it did not really matter.

Former Business Secretary Vince Cable has revealed May was far from happy with this trade-off, even raising concerns in cabinet.

With Osborne now on the backbenches, May is free to shape Britain’s relations with China as she sees fit. For clues to her stance on China, look to her influential joint chief of staff Nick Timothy.

In an article published on the Conservative Home website last October, Timothy — who worked alongside May at the Home Office, which is responsible for security services MI5 and GCHQ — wrote of the proposed Hinkley deal: “Security experts — reportedly inside as well as outside government — are worried that the Chinese could use their role to build weaknesses into computer systems which will allow them to shut down Britain’s energy production at will.”

He added: “MI5 believes that ‘the intelligence services of … China … continue to work against U.K. interests at home and abroad.’”

In short, May and her advisors believe there is a trade-off between national security and Chinese cash. She might decide the price is too high.

The Italian way

Italy’s experience with China suggests that Osborne’s deferential approach to winning investment may not be the only way. While London rolled out the red carpet, Italy has been a vocal critic of China. Carlo Calenda, the economy minister, opposed China winning freer access to EU markets and accused Beijing of harming European companies through dumping.

Despite Italy’s more hostile tone, the country attracted more than twice as much foreign direct investment from China as the U.K. last year. Data compiled by law firm Baker & McKenzie showed the top three EU countries by investment value were Italy ($7.8 billion), France ($3.6 billion) and then the U.K. ($3.3 billion).

The vast majority of the Chinese investment came from ChemChina’s purchase of Pirelli, the tire manufacturer. China acquired yet another iconic Italian brand on August 5, with a fund buying AC Milan football club for €760 million.

“Chinese investors have a 2 percent stake in the 10 largest Italian public companies,” Alberto Forchielli, one of the founding partners of Mandarin Capital, a private equity firm specializing in Europe-China investments, said. These include Italian oil and electric giants Eni and Enel, and CDP Reti, the holding company that controls the Italian electrical grid.

“But there is a stark difference in the quality of Chinese investment in the U.K. and Italy,” Forchielli added. After the recession, Italy put stakes in some of its strategic companies on the market hoping to attract capital and shore up some of its public debt.

Nevertheless, Italy provides May with a possible alternative playbook for making friends with Chinese business.

May unlikely to be swayed by threats

In Westminster, May remains something of an enigma. She was a key member of the Tory modernizing wing, supporting David Cameron’s project to drag the party back to electability.

In government she often appeared something of a hawk, advocating the end of the human rights act and sending vans onto the streets of London ordering illegal immigrants to “go home.”

If one thing is known about her, it is that she is her own woman and not easily swayed. One former cabinet minister said she was the only person he ever saw say no to Cameron and Osborne. The issue? Chinese visas. Osborne wanted it to be easier for Chinese tourists to come to London, but May was adamantly opposed.

She showed this side of her character when she telephoned Hollande to inform him she was reviewing the Hinkley project, telling him “I have just become prime minister. It is my method,” the Financial Times reported. Quite.

How to keep the lights on?

The repeated delays to Hinkley’s approval have left the U.K. in an awkward position.

When it was first proposed a decade ago, it was touted as the answer to the U.K.’s need for big and emissions-free electricity supplies. EDF’s timeline slipped to 2025 this year, although many doubt that the company can make that. After making the final investment decision last month, the company said it would pour thefirst concrete in 2019.

So while Hinkley could still step in to provide 7 percent of the country’s electricity without emitting greenhouse gases, the project won’t be completed anywhere near in time to fill the U.K.’s projected shortfall — even if May approves it soon.

That shortage is expected to hit in around 2019. Coal-fired power plants are already being shuttered in response to the government’s decision last year to phase out all coal by 2025. Existing nuclear power plants also face retirement in the coming decade, and the country’s North Sea gas supplies are starting to run dry.

Cameron pinned the country’s energy future on a fleet of at least five new nuclear power plants, led by Hinkley. China would invest in a second French-led project, and then use its own technology for a third plant in Essex.

With nuclear on the horizon, Cameron’s government decided to scale back subsidies for solar and onshore wind energy in the months after his re-election last year, saying they had become too expensive for bill payers.

If nuclear is dumped as well, what then?

How to play Brussels

One of May’s toughest strategic decisions this autumn will be to decide whether Britain will continue to burn significant political capital in Brussels by protecting China from higher tariffs on dumped goods — a life-or-death question for many of the EU’s leading manufacturers, such as steelmakers.

France, Germany, Italy and Poland are pushing hard to allowBrussels to hit China with the sort of retaliatory high tariffs that the U.S. uses.

The U.K. has led a minority blocking such reforms ever since the Commission proposed them in 2013.

Europe’s biggest countries have sensed that the Brexit vote gives them an opportunity to bypass British opposition. But diplomats told POLITICO that Britain is in no hurry to backtrack on its position and is likely to continue to vote in China’s favor in Council.

It’s all about the money, money, money

In the days after the Brexit vote, emotions were running high. One Conservative MP, a Remain campaigner and now a government minister, felt obliged to apologize for “f***ing it up.” Smoking a cigarette in parliament’s New Palace Yard he said the economy had just had the rug pulled out from under it.

Britain’s ballooning deficit meant the country was reliant on mass inward investment just to stay afloat, he explained. After Brexit this could all dry up, leaving the U.K. economy on the rocks.

Maximus

Relying on FDI to plug a balance-of-payments deficit is like a thirsty man drinking salt water. It will make the problem worse.

Example. A foreigner buys a house in London for £500k. He fills it with tenants who pay £5,000 a month in rent.

After 100 months – eight years – he has recouped what he spent on the house. After that, the rent is pure profit, and a net drain on Britain’s balance of payments.

No wonder the Remain campaign lost, if it was run by people who didn’t realise this. “Foreign investment” exists to make foreigners richer. Not to help British people.

Posted on 8/10/16 | 3:35 PM CET

BorisT

Although I do not like Ms May, she is correct in putting a stop to a foreign company controlling a strategic utility. Now she needs to go one step further, and take all utilities and transport decisions back into the hands of government by nationalising them as soon as possible. If we want to remain a Sovereign Nation this is the only way it can be done.